If nearly every major financial tie seems to intersect with favorable political outcomes, are Americans confronting systemic corruption or something new and even more entrenched?
Republicans in that chamber were literally glowing and smiling after the SOTU. They thought he was amazing and told him so. It's called identity fusion. He's great---their great.
As always he tried to ride the coattails of heroes. He projected all his crimes onto people that did none of those things. Then gaslighted the hell out everyone about the Biden Administration's record.
Hold the truth close and never let it go. Teach it. Preach it. See you in the streets.
alis, If Reich is right, we might have something to look forward to. One of the comments on the letter describes in 4 steps how Reich's letter can be achieved..
It's something to look forward to, if what he describes catches on.
The taxes we pay go to pay the interest on government securities.. first, and then to redeem maturing securities. Government securities are issued on time basis, U.S. government securities (Treasuries) have maturity terms ranging from 4 weeks to 30 years, depending on the specific type of instrument. These securities are classified by their maturity length into bills (short-term), notes (intermediate-term), and bonds (long-term).
Here it works. Congress passes a spending bill, the President signs it, it then goes to the U.S.Treasury, which printes up government securities.
These securities are then sold to a cabal of investment bankers, called the Asssociation of Primary Dealers in Government Securities.Click on List here and see who they are, there are 25 of them, some come others take their place but always 25 https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/primarydealers
The Primary Dealers sell them to the Fed (which uses them in it's reserve base), foreign investors, like sovereign funds and central banks, and to institutions like retirement and private equity funds and Universities.
The redemption and interest, a lot of it, actually shows up in 401(k) funds, Unnion pension funds, , money market funds, and retirement management funds.
My wife, has quite a bit tied up in a tax deferred account with Mission Square, she had a choice of options in which to buy into, high risk, high yield, or low risk, low yield. (Government securities) She chose low risk, low yhield.
Tom nicely recounts some of Trump's more recent grifts. Most of these are conflicts of interest that are normally considered illegal. Billionaires, Trump included, would react with "So, sue me." He can say that because he has the most corrupt Attorney General in our lifetime who would not prosecute him for a murder in the White House caught on TV.
What Thom does not dive into is the hundreds of thousands of people who have died because of his reckless policies, like illegal invasions to support his extortion racket to make bucks off corrupt nations. Then there is ending USAID, already killing thousands, and continuing bipartisan support for Palestinian genocide with the apparent goal of turning Gaza into a trillion-dollar Mediterranean resort.
Here at home, Trump's proposed ending of government health insurance programs to justify his stupid tariffs will kill thousands too. Sending people two-thousand-dollar checks every year from tariff income is not an adequate replacement for health insurance. It is merely a bribe to shut up lower-income complaints. Trump knows the payments will go for a new F150 or Dodge Ram pick-up - not healthcare. The cost of one gallbladder operation, a common middle-aged surgery, runs 15-20 thousand dollars. Then, with no money for healthcare bills when needed, the lower 50% will die or go bankrupt - and his billionaire cronies will make a bundle foreclosing on them.
To,So I have propose women who get on this substack start of movement WOMEN AGANST PAM BONDI. No responses,apparently no women want to get involved in that sort of pushback.Bondi has so much baggage,she should be an easy target.
Thanks Thom for listing most of Trumps greatest bribery grifts. I'd love to see a TV commercial listing all of these bribes. Slowly scrolling monosyllabic one liners in large font. Though this commercial would likely have to be longer than a 30 second spot to capture half of his grifts. I've seen ads for Melania, Donny and the GOP - how about one for the Dems?!
I feel as though I should have no more capacity for surprise, but I do indeed find it surprising more people are not up in arms about the blatant grift. Overall his speech was predictable and mostly boring, but perhaps the most absurd part was the fraudster-in-chief announcing a war on fraud. Are you kidding me? The regime's blatancy is the most troubling aspect of all of this. Either they are utterly power-drunk or they think they've already rigged it securely enough that they won't be held accountable.
It is important to realize,not just now but for the past 40 yrs Trump has been screwing people,from the Hispanic workers in his Atlantic City casinos,to all the contractors he has agreements with,that are never kept. Trump is a " Nazi" .Trump does what " Hitler did"
Wall Street,Religion,Supreme Court,CNBC,many large financial insitutions,the Neo Nazis,the neo confederates all support him. Do you think maybe we have a problem with morality in this country? He will continue his behavior until the Dems have someone with enough strength and following to go after him physically. Maybe if 20 million Dems show up for the next no kings protest on 3/28/26,it might a difference.
Daniel,I hope you're right,I'm not optimistic. I have an friend who keeps telling me everything is going to be just fine.He started saying that last July,. I wonder what alternate universe he's living in.He spends a huge amt of time in his local synogogue,where most the attendees are Trump supporters. He is a not a fighter,does no rallies,what could possibly his reason for being optimisitic.
I've laid this out many times. Takes 9 to flip the House. Massie R KY is now adamant that Trump must go.
The first 2026 Republican primaries, TX, NC & AR are March 3. We'll see but several incumbents are opposed by Trump. If they lose, they'll be like the 3 0r 4 MAGA already opposed to Trump on Epstein.
Kentucky in May will be interesting. Trump opposes. Massie.
Knowing about his grift is one thing but seeing the list of his corruptive tactics in black and white is very hard to digest.
I continue to put all of my eggs in the Epstein basket. It was reported that one of the survivors accused trump of sexually assaulting her as a minor, then hitting her. She was interviewed four times by the FBI. All four are indexed in the file but only one was released that doesn't include trump's name. This is a blatant coverup to protect this slimy sack of human waste. But it's just a matter of time. The survivors who suffered silently for decades and finally finding their voice are not going away....
Sophia,I'm not certain that if Trump were found guilty of raping 10 -15 yr girls,it would make a difference to his base. They could do what Epstein and others have been guilty and pay no price. This country has unfortunately become a 3rd world entity run by "Nazis" whom have no moral compass.
Some MAGAs have defected because of the mass deportations and the Epstein files. But the DOJ blatantly lying and doing everything imaginable to protect these creeps and pay no price, as you say, is indigestible to me. Any one of trump's criminalities should get him impeach. The last thing we need is war with Iran. This is the first time trump has been accused of molesting a minor with receipts to prove it. I believe it's the red line and a game changer....
Sophia,not certain I agree with you. His base,all of whom I have mentioned in past posts are firmly behind him regardless of his guilt.They are all morally bankrupt and my feeling is ,they wish they had been part of the Epstein sex ring.
Whether or not this is true, though, all economies need our tax money—oodles of it. What happens when there is no longer a healthy or sub-healthy middle class to pay these taxes to support these bloatinaires?
Well, we can look back to past regimes and empires that hired thugs to beat it out of the population or just repossess everything you have, and raid your bank account.
Repossess: another word for “you never owned it in the first place”
One other thing about Dump’s SOTU rant is he apparently confessed to murder on the high seas. He said, and I am quoting here, “And with our new military campaign, we have stopped record amounts of drugs coming into our country and virtually stopped it completely coming in by water or sea, you probably noticed that. You’ve seriously damaged their fishing industry, also. Nobody wants to go fishing any more.”
Here he admits that their shooting boats out of the water was not based on any evidence that they were smuggling drugs into our country. The shootings were indiscriminate.
That is murder, plain and simple. He, Hegseth, and every sailor in the chain of command down to the petty officer that pulled the trigger needs to be arrested.
Trump only pardons those who can pay him great sums. He could not care less about poor people in jail. He is amassing money every day he is in office by various scams and grifs.
The question may be,why would anyone who follows Hartmann,waste their time watching the"Nazi"take up their time last night. Dems had a chance to uniformly boycott last night,they failed to do so. Eliz Warren,Shumer,the Dems in Georgia,and so many others showed up.
My question for all of you." WILL THE DEMS EVER FIGURE OUT,HOW TO GO ON OFFENSE?"
Few are aware of what is going on with the merger of TMTG (Trump's company) and TAE (a fusion development company) Of course, if a system for the reliable production of fusion energy were to be accomplished, it would radically upgrade and allow the production of clean and unlimited energy production on this planet. Who wouldn't want to get in on the ground floor of stock for a company that could produce it? So, recently TAE announced that it is on the brink of doing so--so much that they are going to start construction of a plant in 2026. Keep in mind though that as far as I can investigate, they have at no time publicly demonstrated their progress towards sustained fusion, and also, keep in mind that TAE has been claiming for decades that they are on the brink of pulling off fusion but has never made good on that claim. So, Trump announced his company is so convinced that TAE is going to make good that they have agreed to merge with them on an all stock merger with each company ending up with 50% of the merged stock. Trtump announced that the merger will be worth $6 billion. Only the combined worth of the two companys' stock is $4.6 bllion, not $6 billion. Where does the extra $1.4 billion come from? Evidently it is the amount in stock increase that the newly merged company plans to acquire through people greedy to get in on this revolutionary advance in energy production. Sounds like snake oil to me. Meanwhile, one of the worlds's most influencial fusion experts, a professor from MIT turns up shot in the head in his entry way. One day after he dies, Trump makes his announcement of the merger. Just saying. Hmmmmm. I posted a full report with more details on Shea Foote @ Substack.com
The Looong Boring Lie.....
Republicans in that chamber were literally glowing and smiling after the SOTU. They thought he was amazing and told him so. It's called identity fusion. He's great---their great.
As always he tried to ride the coattails of heroes. He projected all his crimes onto people that did none of those things. Then gaslighted the hell out everyone about the Biden Administration's record.
Hold the truth close and never let it go. Teach it. Preach it. See you in the streets.
The old saw "We have the best government money can buy" is more true today than ever.
Reich's newsletter appears hopeful.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/how-california-can-neuter-citizens?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
alis, If Reich is right, we might have something to look forward to. One of the comments on the letter describes in 4 steps how Reich's letter can be achieved..
It's something to look forward to, if what he describes catches on.
Actually the more we pay the less we get.
It is not we the people who are buying the government, it is the techbros, financiers, oil cabal
I didn’t mean we are buying the gov, we pay our taxes and the money goes into private hands.
The taxes we pay go to pay the interest on government securities.. first, and then to redeem maturing securities. Government securities are issued on time basis, U.S. government securities (Treasuries) have maturity terms ranging from 4 weeks to 30 years, depending on the specific type of instrument. These securities are classified by their maturity length into bills (short-term), notes (intermediate-term), and bonds (long-term).
Here it works. Congress passes a spending bill, the President signs it, it then goes to the U.S.Treasury, which printes up government securities.
These securities are then sold to a cabal of investment bankers, called the Asssociation of Primary Dealers in Government Securities.Click on List here and see who they are, there are 25 of them, some come others take their place but always 25 https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/primarydealers
The Primary Dealers sell them to the Fed (which uses them in it's reserve base), foreign investors, like sovereign funds and central banks, and to institutions like retirement and private equity funds and Universities.
The redemption and interest, a lot of it, actually shows up in 401(k) funds, Unnion pension funds, , money market funds, and retirement management funds.
My wife, has quite a bit tied up in a tax deferred account with Mission Square, she had a choice of options in which to buy into, high risk, high yield, or low risk, low yield. (Government securities) She chose low risk, low yhield.
The terminology is like quantum physics, too hard to keep in my head. It's no wonder, I went into education.
Our need for simple answers, has led to our manipulation and control.
Are we any different than the child who asks "Why is the sky blue daddy""?
Yes. Oligarchy. Tempertantrump has always used others money and placed his name on it as if it were his.
Tom nicely recounts some of Trump's more recent grifts. Most of these are conflicts of interest that are normally considered illegal. Billionaires, Trump included, would react with "So, sue me." He can say that because he has the most corrupt Attorney General in our lifetime who would not prosecute him for a murder in the White House caught on TV.
What Thom does not dive into is the hundreds of thousands of people who have died because of his reckless policies, like illegal invasions to support his extortion racket to make bucks off corrupt nations. Then there is ending USAID, already killing thousands, and continuing bipartisan support for Palestinian genocide with the apparent goal of turning Gaza into a trillion-dollar Mediterranean resort.
Here at home, Trump's proposed ending of government health insurance programs to justify his stupid tariffs will kill thousands too. Sending people two-thousand-dollar checks every year from tariff income is not an adequate replacement for health insurance. It is merely a bribe to shut up lower-income complaints. Trump knows the payments will go for a new F150 or Dodge Ram pick-up - not healthcare. The cost of one gallbladder operation, a common middle-aged surgery, runs 15-20 thousand dollars. Then, with no money for healthcare bills when needed, the lower 50% will die or go bankrupt - and his billionaire cronies will make a bundle foreclosing on them.
To,So I have propose women who get on this substack start of movement WOMEN AGANST PAM BONDI. No responses,apparently no women want to get involved in that sort of pushback.Bondi has so much baggage,she should be an easy target.
She used to be my state AG. She was just window dressing for Fascist Gov DeSantis. She likely got the job for being prettier than Ken Paxton in TX.
Thanks Thom for listing most of Trumps greatest bribery grifts. I'd love to see a TV commercial listing all of these bribes. Slowly scrolling monosyllabic one liners in large font. Though this commercial would likely have to be longer than a 30 second spot to capture half of his grifts. I've seen ads for Melania, Donny and the GOP - how about one for the Dems?!
I feel as though I should have no more capacity for surprise, but I do indeed find it surprising more people are not up in arms about the blatant grift. Overall his speech was predictable and mostly boring, but perhaps the most absurd part was the fraudster-in-chief announcing a war on fraud. Are you kidding me? The regime's blatancy is the most troubling aspect of all of this. Either they are utterly power-drunk or they think they've already rigged it securely enough that they won't be held accountable.
It is important to realize,not just now but for the past 40 yrs Trump has been screwing people,from the Hispanic workers in his Atlantic City casinos,to all the contractors he has agreements with,that are never kept. Trump is a " Nazi" .Trump does what " Hitler did"
Wall Street,Religion,Supreme Court,CNBC,many large financial insitutions,the Neo Nazis,the neo confederates all support him. Do you think maybe we have a problem with morality in this country? He will continue his behavior until the Dems have someone with enough strength and following to go after him physically. Maybe if 20 million Dems show up for the next no kings protest on 3/28/26,it might a difference.
Only takes a few Congressional Republicans to stand up against pedophelia.
Daniel,I hope you're right,I'm not optimistic. I have an friend who keeps telling me everything is going to be just fine.He started saying that last July,. I wonder what alternate universe he's living in.He spends a huge amt of time in his local synogogue,where most the attendees are Trump supporters. He is a not a fighter,does no rallies,what could possibly his reason for being optimisitic.
I've laid this out many times. Takes 9 to flip the House. Massie R KY is now adamant that Trump must go.
The first 2026 Republican primaries, TX, NC & AR are March 3. We'll see but several incumbents are opposed by Trump. If they lose, they'll be like the 3 0r 4 MAGA already opposed to Trump on Epstein.
Kentucky in May will be interesting. Trump opposes. Massie.
We've been working on the Problem Solvers conference. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
2 of the 3 MAGA House members here oppose Trump on immigration policy.
I agree. Here's a link to my brief piece about the state of the union. At the end I share a link to a fellow Substack author's excellent piece on the Spiritual State of the Union.https://cylviahayes.substack.com/p/a-transcendent-state-of-the-union?r=5q9xe&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Methinks both of the above.
Knowing about his grift is one thing but seeing the list of his corruptive tactics in black and white is very hard to digest.
I continue to put all of my eggs in the Epstein basket. It was reported that one of the survivors accused trump of sexually assaulting her as a minor, then hitting her. She was interviewed four times by the FBI. All four are indexed in the file but only one was released that doesn't include trump's name. This is a blatant coverup to protect this slimy sack of human waste. But it's just a matter of time. The survivors who suffered silently for decades and finally finding their voice are not going away....
Sophia,I'm not certain that if Trump were found guilty of raping 10 -15 yr girls,it would make a difference to his base. They could do what Epstein and others have been guilty and pay no price. This country has unfortunately become a 3rd world entity run by "Nazis" whom have no moral compass.
Some MAGAs have defected because of the mass deportations and the Epstein files. But the DOJ blatantly lying and doing everything imaginable to protect these creeps and pay no price, as you say, is indigestible to me. Any one of trump's criminalities should get him impeach. The last thing we need is war with Iran. This is the first time trump has been accused of molesting a minor with receipts to prove it. I believe it's the red line and a game changer....
Sophia,not certain I agree with you. His base,all of whom I have mentioned in past posts are firmly behind him regardless of his guilt.They are all morally bankrupt and my feeling is ,they wish they had been part of the Epstein sex ring.
Identity fusion. They are in so deep that the line between him and them is blurred.
I actually think you are both right in some sense.
The question - does this new economy still need consumers?
Now there’s an interesting question!
Whether or not this is true, though, all economies need our tax money—oodles of it. What happens when there is no longer a healthy or sub-healthy middle class to pay these taxes to support these bloatinaires?
Well, we can look back to past regimes and empires that hired thugs to beat it out of the population or just repossess everything you have, and raid your bank account.
Repossess: another word for “you never owned it in the first place”
More homeless—who cares?
Try Wolfgang Streeck
The biggest con man in the history of civilization.....
One other thing about Dump’s SOTU rant is he apparently confessed to murder on the high seas. He said, and I am quoting here, “And with our new military campaign, we have stopped record amounts of drugs coming into our country and virtually stopped it completely coming in by water or sea, you probably noticed that. You’ve seriously damaged their fishing industry, also. Nobody wants to go fishing any more.”
Here he admits that their shooting boats out of the water was not based on any evidence that they were smuggling drugs into our country. The shootings were indiscriminate.
That is murder, plain and simple. He, Hegseth, and every sailor in the chain of command down to the petty officer that pulled the trigger needs to be arrested.
Trump only pardons those who can pay him great sums. He could not care less about poor people in jail. He is amassing money every day he is in office by various scams and grifs.
The question may be,why would anyone who follows Hartmann,waste their time watching the"Nazi"take up their time last night. Dems had a chance to uniformly boycott last night,they failed to do so. Eliz Warren,Shumer,the Dems in Georgia,and so many others showed up.
My question for all of you." WILL THE DEMS EVER FIGURE OUT,HOW TO GO ON OFFENSE?"
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/how-california-can-neuter-citizens?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Ah, come on, Thomm, what governance? All I can see is pure GRIFT.
Few are aware of what is going on with the merger of TMTG (Trump's company) and TAE (a fusion development company) Of course, if a system for the reliable production of fusion energy were to be accomplished, it would radically upgrade and allow the production of clean and unlimited energy production on this planet. Who wouldn't want to get in on the ground floor of stock for a company that could produce it? So, recently TAE announced that it is on the brink of doing so--so much that they are going to start construction of a plant in 2026. Keep in mind though that as far as I can investigate, they have at no time publicly demonstrated their progress towards sustained fusion, and also, keep in mind that TAE has been claiming for decades that they are on the brink of pulling off fusion but has never made good on that claim. So, Trump announced his company is so convinced that TAE is going to make good that they have agreed to merge with them on an all stock merger with each company ending up with 50% of the merged stock. Trtump announced that the merger will be worth $6 billion. Only the combined worth of the two companys' stock is $4.6 bllion, not $6 billion. Where does the extra $1.4 billion come from? Evidently it is the amount in stock increase that the newly merged company plans to acquire through people greedy to get in on this revolutionary advance in energy production. Sounds like snake oil to me. Meanwhile, one of the worlds's most influencial fusion experts, a professor from MIT turns up shot in the head in his entry way. One day after he dies, Trump makes his announcement of the merger. Just saying. Hmmmmm. I posted a full report with more details on Shea Foote @ Substack.com
Wow! The definition of "infinity" is that it has no end. Trump's corruption in infinite.